Humanoid robot makes debut at Spanx distribution center
Created by Agility Robotics
By Joshua Skinner
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FLOWERY BRANCH, Georgia (WANF) — A Spanx distribution center in metro Atlanta is on the frontline of more than just shapewear. Over the past week, GXO Logistics has introduced a brand new co-worker to the warehouse floor.
“There’s no decision-making, said Jonathan Hurst, Chief Robotics Officer for Agility Robotics. “This is the exact same thing all day long.”
Created by Agility Robotics, the robot, named “Digit”, has two arms, two legs, and two “eyes”. It’s already contributing to the holiday season.
“If somebody today, right now, buys something off the Spanx website, it’s going through Digit’s handling,” Hurst said.
For GXO Logistics, a third-party logistics provider (3PL) and owner of Spanx’s largest distribution center, that’s a lot of shapewear.
“We’re kinda at that early personal computer moment when computing became a thing, and it suddenly became incredibly useful,” Hurst said.
Digit is the first ever humanoid robot in a 3PL setting like this, and GXO Logistics is using it to move Spanx bins.
“It’s very heavy work, very redundant, very repetitive, and something we thought it would be perfect for Digit to take over,” said Suresh Babu, GXO’s Vice President for Engineering and Continuous Improvement.
Robots are already ingrained into the fabric of warehouses. Digit might be the next step, one that Hurst says is not designed to push people out.
“What we’re doing is what we’ve been doing throughout human history,” Hurst said. “Creating tools to allow the same number of humans to do more than we’ve ever been able to do before.”
Hurst envisions these bipeds eventually being consumer products.
“Robots like this are going to be commonplace like phones and cars,” Hurst said.
And while they’re unlikely to rise up and take over the world, it will take time to adjust to our new “coworkers”.
“It’s a very hard worker,” Babu joked.
Agility Robotics is currently working on a production plant in Oregon that can push out 10,000 humanoid robots each year.
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